Workbench

After a lot of mental wrangling, I got tired of my waffling and just built a bench. I really wanted a Benchcrafted shaker bench, but didn’t have the time or the money to make it happen. This one was quick construction and used mostly materials I had on hand. It’s about 64” long, 34” high, 24” wide. I used hard maple and some maple ply for the legs and stretchers. The legs are a torsion box. The vise chops are mahogany.The top used to be a bench at a school that was demolished a few years ago. It was sitting in my warehouse and I cut it down to the size I needed. You can see what it looked like in picture 4. I flattened it and removed most of the stains and scratches. I still want to add a bank of drawers underneath, but I’m not sure when I’ll be able to get to that.

It’s really heavy and stable and has been an absolute joy to work on. It’s amazing how much simpler life is when you can hold your work easily.